The Ottomans gained control of the Middle East under Selim I (1465–1520), and incorporated the region into an administrative unit, the eyalet
of Syria. The name "Palestine" disappeared as the official name of an
administrative unit, and much of the region became part of the vilayet (province) of Damascus-Syria until 1660, then the vilayet of Saida (Sidon), briefly interrupted by the 7 March 1799–July 1799 French occupation of Jaffa, Haifa, and Caesarea. On 10 May1832 it was one of the Turkish provinces annexed by Muhammad Ali's briefly imperialistic Egypt (nominally still Ottoman), but in November 1840 direct Ottoman rule was restored.

The British military administration ended starvation with the aid of food supplies from Egypt, successfully fought typhus and choleraepidemics and significantly improved the water supply to Jerusalem.
They reduced corruption by paying the Arab and Jewish judges higher
salaries. Communications were improved by new railway and telegraph
lines.

In the Sykes-Picot
agreement of 1916, Britain and France had proposed to divide the Middle
East between them into spheres of influence, with "Palestine" as an
international enclave.[2]

After the Sykes-Picot
agreement of 1916, the British had made two promises regarding the
territory in the Middle East it was expecting to acquire. Britain had
promised the local Arabs,
through Lawrence, independence for a united Arab country covering most
of the Arab Middle East, in exchange for their support of the British;
and in the Balfour Declaration of 1917 had promised to create and foster a Jewish national home in Palestine. The British had, in the Hussein-McMahon Correspondence, previously promised the Hashemite family lordship over most land in the region in return for their support. At the same time, British interest in Zionism dates to the rise in importance of the British Empire’s South Asian enterprises in the early 19th century, concurrent with "the Great Game" and planning for the Suez Canal. Eminent British figures such as Queen Victoria, her son King Edward VII, Prime Minister Lloyd George, 19th century Prime Minister Lord Palmerston and Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour were among the enthusiastic proponents of Zionism.

In October 1919, British forces in Syria and the last British
soldiers stationed east of the Jordan were withdrawn and the region
came under exclusive control of Faisal bin Hussein from Damascus.[3]

On November 23, 1918,
a military edict was issued dividing Ottoman territories into occupied
enemy territories (OET). The Middle East would be divided into three
OETs, and OET-South extended from the Egyptian border of Sinai into
Palestine and Lebanon as far north as Acre and Nablus and as far east as the River Jordan. A temporary British military governor (General Moony) would administer this sector.[4][5][6]
At that time General Allenby assured Amir Faisal "that the Allies were
in honour bound to endeavour to reach a settlement in accordance with
the wishes of the peoples concerned and urged him to place his trust
whole-heartedly in their good faith."[7]

"The borders of mandatory Palestine, first drawn up in the
Sykes-Picot Agreement, were given their definitive shape during lengthy
and tedious negotiations by British and French officials between 1919
and 1922...In October 1919 the British envisaged the area that is today
southern Lebanon and most of southern Syria as being part of British
mandatory Palestine...In the East, matters were more
complicated...[Transjordan] was part of the Ottoman province of
Damascus which in the Sykes-Picot agreement had been allocated to the
French."[9]

At the San Remo Conference (19–26 April1920)
the Allied Supreme Council granted the mandates for Palestine and
Mesopotamia to Britain without precisely defining the boundaries of the
mandated territories.[10][11]
Although the land east of the Jordan had been part of the Syrian
administrative unit under the Ottomans, it was excluded from the French
Mandate at the San Remo conference, "on the grounds that it was part of
Palestine."[12]

After the San Remo Conference the British government placed
Palestine under civil rule, in anticipation of the granting of a formal
League of Nations
Mandate. The Mandate was approved in July 1922 and came into effect in
September 1923. In April 1921, before the Mandate came into effect in
September 1923, Britain created an autonomous political division called
the Emirate of Transjordan in a part of what would become the Mandate
Territory of Palestine. Accordingly, the objectives set out in the
British Mandate for Palestine did not apply to what became Transjordan.

The League explicitly tasked the British with recognizing "the
historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and to the
grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country" and
“secur[ing] the establishment of the Jewish national home” while
simultaneously safeguarding "the civil and religious rights of all the
inhabitants of Palestine.”[14]

The precise geographical boundaries of the Mandate, and whether or
not it was wholly intended to become a "Jewish National Home" have
historically been disputed, with conflicting and shifting British
promises to Jewish and Arab interests made in the Balfour Declaration of 1917, the Sykes-Picot Agreement, the Hussein-McMahon Correspondence, and the Churchill White Paper, 1922. Territory under British control east of the Jordan River was formed in September 1922 into a separate administration known as Transjordan.
Transfer of authority to an Arab government in Transjordan took place
gradually, starting with the recognition of a local administration in
1923 and transfer of most administrative functions in 1928. Britain
retained mandatory authority over the region until it became fully
independent as the Hashemite Kingdom of Trans-Jordan in 1946.

The partition plan was rejected out of hand by the leadership of the Palestinian Arabs, by the Arab League, and by most of the Arab population. Most of the Jews accepted the proposal, in particular the Jewish Agency,
which was the Jewish state-in-formation. The British refused to
implement any parts of the Plan deemed unacceptable by either side, and
refused to co-administer the Mandate with the UN Commission. Jewish
leaders declared the independent State of Israel the day prior to
British withdrawal, on 14 May1948, and the ensuing 1948 Arab-Israeli War
ended with the former mandatory territory controlled by the State of
Israel, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, and the Kingdom of Egypt.

Regardless of the territorial boundaries, from an administrative standpoint, the 1947 UNSCOP report in the Official Records of the Second Session of the [United Nations] General Assembly
noted: "Following its occupation by British troops in 1917–1918,
Palestine had been controlled by the Occupied Enemy Territory
Administration of the United Kingdom Government. Anticipating the
establishment of the Mandate, the United Kingdom Government, as from 1
July 1920, replaced the military with a civilian administration, headed
by a High Commissioner ultimately responsible to the Secretary of State
for the Colonies in Great Britain."[16][17]David Lloyd George approved the appointment of Herbert Samuel as this High Commissioner. Samuel arrived in Palestine on June 20, 1920, and complied with a demand from the head of the military administration, General Sir Louis Bols,
that he sign a receipt for ‘one Palestine, complete’: Samuel famously
added the common commercial escape clause, ‘E&OE’ (errors and
omissions excepted).[18]

At the Battle of Maysalun on 23 July1920 the French removed the newly-proclaimed nationalist government of Hashim al-Atassi and expelled King Faisal from Syria. British Foreign Secretary Earl Curzon
wrote to Samuel in August 1920, stating, "I suggest that you should let
it be known forthwith that in the area south of the [Sykes-Picot] line,
we will not admit French authority and that our policy for this area to
be independent but in closest relations with Palestine."[19]
Samuel replied to Curzon, "After the fall of Damascus a fortnight
ago...Sheiks and tribes east of Jordan utterly dissatisfied with
Shareefian Government most unlikely would accept revival"[20] and subsequently announced that Transjordan was under British Mandate.[21]
Without authority from London Samuel then visited Transjordan and at a
meeting with 600 leaders in Salt announced the independence of the area
from Damascus and its absorption into the mandate, quadrupling the area
under his control. Samuel assured his audience that Transjordan would
not be merged with Palestine.[22] The foreign secretary, Lord Curzon, repudiated Samuel's action.[18] Subsequently, Faisal's brother Abdullah arrived in Ma'an in southern Transjordan with 2000 followers announcing his intention to retake Syria from the French.[23]

The Palestine Ensign, flown by ships registered in the Mandate territory, 1927–1948

According to the Council of the League of Nations, meeting of August
1920 (p109–110): "draft mandates adopted by the Allied and Associated
Powers would not be definitive until they had been considered and
approved by the League ... the legal title held by the mandatory Power
must be a double one: one conferred by the Principal Powers and the
other conferred by the League of Nations,"[24]
and three steps were required to establish a Mandate under
international law: (1) The Principal Allied and Associated Powers
confer a mandate on one of their number or on a third power; (2) the
principal powers officially notify the council of the League of Nations
that a certain power has been appointed mandatory for such a certain
defined territory; and (3) the council of the League of Nations takes
official cognisance of the appointment of the mandatory power and
informs the latter that it [the council] considers it as invested with
the mandate, and at the same time notifies it of the terms of the
mandate, after assertaining whether they are in conformance with the
provisions of the covenant."[24][25]

In March 1921 Colonial secretary, Winston Churchill, visited
Jerusalem and after discussion with Abdullah accepted Transjordan into
the mandatory area with the proviso that it would be under the nominal
rule of the emir Abdullah (initially for six months) and would not form
part of the Jewish national home to be established west of the River
Jordan[18], and on June 3, 1922 the Churchill White Paper, 1922
stated explicitly that "the terms of the [Balfour] Declaration referred
to do not contemplate that Palestine as a whole should be converted
into a Jewish National Home, but that such a Home should be founded `in
Palestine.'"

In June 1922 the League of Nations approved the Palestine Mandate, to come into effect when a dispute between France and Italy over the Syria Mandate was settled. That occurred in September 1923. According to the League of Nations Official Journal', "the mandates for Palestine and Syria would now enter into force automatically and at the same time."[26]
The Palestine Mandate was an explicit document regarding Britain's
responsibilities and powers of administration in Palestine including
recognizing "the historical connection of the Jewish people with
Palestine and to the grounds for reconstituting their national home in
that country" and “secur[ing] the establishment of the Jewish national
home” while safeguarding "the civil and religious rights of all the
inhabitants of Palestine” and "political status enjoyed by Jews in any
other country”.

The document defining Britain’s obligations as Mandate power copied
the text of the Balfour Declaration concerning the establishment of a
Jewish national home:

Whereas the Principal Allied Powers have also agreed that the
Mandatory should be responsible for putting into effect the declaration
originally made on November 2nd, 1917, by the Government of His
Britannic Majesty, and adopted by the said Powers, in favor of the
establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, it
being clearly understood that nothing should be done which might
prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish
communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by
Jews in any other country[.][27]

Many articles of the document specified actions in support of Jewish
immigration and political status. However, it was also stated that in
the large, mostly arid, territory to the east of the Jordan River, then called Transjordan,
Britain could ‘postpone or withhold’ application of the provisions
dealing with the 'Jewish National Home'. In September 1922, the British
government presented a memorandum to the League of Nations stating that
Transjordan would be excluded from all the provisions dealing with
Jewish settlement, and this memorandum was approved on 23 September.
From that point onwards, Britain administered the part west of the
Jordan as Palestine (which was 23% of the entire territory), and the
part east of the Jordan as Transjordan (constituting 77% of the
mandated territories). Technically they remained one mandate but most
official documents referred to them as if they were two separate
mandates. Transjordan remained under British control until 1946.

The boundary between the British and French mandates was defined in broad terms by the Franco-British Boundary Agreement of December 1920 [28].
That agreement placed the bulk of the Golan Heights in the French
sphere. The treaty also established a joint commission to settle the
precise border and mark it on the ground.[28] The commission submitted its final report on February 3, 1922, and it was approved with some caveats by the British and French governments on March 7, 1923, several months before Britain and France assumed their Mandatory responsibilities on 29 September1923.[29][30] In accordance with the same process, a nearby parcel of land that included the ancient site of Dan was transferred from Syria to Palestine early in 1924. The Golan Heights thus became part of the French Mandate of Syria. American President Woodrow Wilson protested British concessions in a cable to the British Cabinet.[31] When the French Mandate of Syria ended in 1944, The Golan Heights became part of the newly independent state of Syria.

In October 1923, Britain provided the League with two reports on the
administration of Palestine and Iraq for the period 1920–1922. The
Secretary General's statement accepting the reports says: "The mandate
for Palestine only came into force on September 29, 1923. The two reports cover periods previous to the application of the mandates."[32]

According to official records, 367,845 Jews and 33,304 non-Jews immigrated legally between 1920 and 1945.[33] It was estimated that another 50–60,000 Jews and a small number of non-Jews immigrated illegally during this period.[34]
Immigration accounts for most of the increase of Jewish population,
while the non-Jewish population increase was largely natural. These
figures have been supported by later studies[35], though estimates of Arab immigration have been disputed.[36]

Initially, Jewish immigration to Palestine met little opposition from the Palestinian Arabs. However, as anti-Semitism grew in Europe during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Jewish immigration (mostly from Europe) to Palestine began to increase markedly, creating much Arab resentment.

The British
government placed limitations on Jewish immigration to Palestine. These
quotas were controversial, particularly in the latter years of British
rule, and both Arabs and Jews disliked the policy, each side for its own reasons. In response to numerous Arab attacks on Jewish communities, the Haganah, a Jewish paramilitary organization, was formed on June 15, 1920
to defend Jewish residents. Tensions led to widespread violent
disturbances on several occasions, notably in 1921, 1929 (primarily
violent attacks by Arabs on Jews — see Hebron) and 1936–1939. Beginning in 1936, several Jewish groups such as Etzel (Irgun) and Lehi (Stern Gang)
conducted their own campaigns of violence against British military and
Arab targets. This prompted the British government to label them both
as terrorist organizations.

From the 1920s to the start of the Second World War, the Mandate
territory underwent enormous economic and cultural development. The
institutions founded in this period included an elected assembly, the Asefat Hanivharim, the National Council for welfare, education, and religious service Vaad Leumi in 1920, a centralized Hebrew school system in 1919, the Histadrut labor federation in 1920, the Technion university in 1924, and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1925.[37]

In 1937, the Peel Commission proposed a partition between Jewish and Arab areas. The proposal was rejected by the Arabs and by the Zionist Congress (by 300 votes to 158) but accepted by the latter as a basis for negotiations between the Executive and the British Government.[38][39]

During the Peel Commission, An Arab land owner Auni Bey Abdul-Hadi
said "There is no such country as "Palestine"; "Palestine" is a term
the Zionists invented". (cited in Christopher Barder "Oslo`s Gift of
peace: The destruction of Israel" ACPR Publishers p95, 2001)The first
part of the statement is normally attributed to former Israeli PM Golda
Meir, who did say a similar thing over thirty years later(see Wiki
quotes).

In 1936–1939 the mandate experienced an upsurge in militant Arab
nationalism that became also known as "the Great Uprising." The revolt
was triggered by increased Jewish immigration, primarily Jews that
escaped the Nazi regime in Germany as well as rising anti-Semitism throughout Europe. The revolt was led or co-opted by the Grand Mufti, Haj Amin Al-Husseini
and his Husseini family. The Arabs felt they were being marginalized in
their own country, but in addition to non-violent strikes, they
resorted to violence, committing numerous attacks on Jewish civilians
including rioting and massacres in 1921, 1929, and in the late 1930s. The Jewish organization Irgun used violence, with marketplace bombings and other massacres that also killed hundreds. Eventually, the uprising was put down by the British using severe measures. Haj Amin El Husseini fled first to Lebanon, then to Iraq, and finally to Germany in late 1941.

The British
placed restrictions on Jewish land purchases in the remaining land,
directly contradicting the provisions of the Mandate. A similar
proposal to limit immigration in 1931 had been termed a violation of
the mandate by the League of Nations. According to the Israeli side,
the British had by 1949 allotted over 8500 acres (34 km²) to Arabs, and
about 4100 acres (16 km²) to Jews.

As in most of the Arab world, there was no unanimity amongst the
Palestinian Arabs as to their position regarding the combatants in World War II. Many signed up for the British army, but others saw an Axis
victory as a likely outcome and a way of securing Palestine back from
the Zionists and the British. Al-Husseini spent the rest of the war
serving with the Waffen SS in Bosnia.

Even though Arabs were not highly regarded by Nazi racial theory, the Nazis encouraged Arab support as much as possible as a counter to British hegemony throughout the Arab world.[40]

In 1942, there was a period of anxiety for the Yishuv, when the forces of German General Erwin Rommel advanced east in North Africa towards the Suez Canal
and there was fear that they would conquer Palestine. This period was
referred to as the two hundred days of anxiety. This event was the
direct cause for the founding, with British support, of the Palmach[41] — a highly-trained regular unit belonging to Haganah (which was mostly made up of reserve troops).

The Holocaust
had a major effect on the situation in Palestine. During the war, the
British forbade entry into Palestine of European Jews escaping Nazi
persecution, placing them in detention camps or deporting them to
places such as Mauritius.[42]Avraham Stern, the leader of the Jewish Lehi
underground group, and other Zionists, tried to convince the Nazis to
continue seeing emigration from Europe as the "solution" for their
"Jewish problem", but the Nazis abandoned this idea in favor of
containment and physical extermination.

Starting in 1939, the Zionists organized an illegal immigration effort, known as Aliya Beth, conducted by "Hamossad Le'aliyah Bet",
that rescued tens of thousands of European Jews from the Nazis by
shipping them to Palestine in rickety boats. Many of these boats were
intercepted. The last immigrant boat to try to enter Palestine during
the war was the Struma, torpedoed in the Black Sea by a Soviet submarine in February 1942. The boat sank with the loss of nearly 800 lives. Illegal immigration resumed after WW II.

Eliyahu Hakim and Eliyahu Bet Zuri, members of the Jewish Lehi underground, assassinated Lord Moyne in Cairo on 6 November1944.
Moyne was the British Minister of State for the Middle East. The
assassination is said by some to have turned British Prime Minister Winston Churchill against the Zionist cause, but for Lehi the priority was to allow Jewish refugees to enter the country and to establish the state on their own.

The British considered Arab support more important, because of their interests in Egypt and control of oil production in Iraq, Kuwait and the Emirates, and especially to guarantee the friendship of oil-rich Saudi Arabia.[citation needed]The ban on immigration continued.

As a result of the assassination of Lord Moyne, the Haganah
kidnapped, interrogated, and turned over to the British many members of
the Irgun (ironically Lehi members were not harmed as a result of an
understanding with Haganah, even though Lehi committed the
assassination). This period is known as the 'Hunting Season'. Irgun ordered its members not to resist or retaliate with violence, so as to prevent a spiraling to civil war.

Following the war, 250,000 Jewish refugees were stranded in
displaced persons (DP) camps in Europe. Despite the pressure of world
opinion, in particular the repeated requests of US President Harry S. Truman and the recommendations of the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry,
the British refused to lift the ban on immigration and admit 100,000
displaced persons to Palestine. The Jewish underground forces then
united and carried out several attacks against the British. In 1946,
the Irgun blew up the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, the headquarters of the British administration, killing 92 people.

Following the bombing the British Government began interning Jews in British camps on Cyprus.
The negative publicity resulting from the situation in Palestine, meant
the mandate was widely unpopular in Britain and caused US Congress to
delay granting the British vital loans for reconstruction. The Labour
party had promised before it's election to allow mass Jewish migration
into Palestine. Additionally the situation required maintenance of
large numbers of war-weary troops in the country (this was funded by
taxing the Jewish community). In response to these pressures the
British announced their desire to terminate the mandate and withdraw by
May 1948.

The British Peel Commission proposed a Palestine divided between a Jewish and an Arab State, but in time changed their position
and sought to limit Jewish immigration from Europe to a minimum. This
was seen by Zionists and their sympathisers as betrayal of the terms of
the mandate, especially in light of the increasing persecution in Europe
and was met with a popular uprising and guerilla war from Jewish
militant groups, often viewed as one of several factors that led the
British to hand the problem over to the United Nations.

The UN, the successor to the League of Nations, attempted to solve the dispute, creating the UNSCOP (UN Special Committee on Palestine) on May 15, 1947.
After spending three months conducting hearings and general survey of
the situation in Palestine, UNSCOP officially released its report on August 31. A majority of nations (Canada, Czechoslovakia, Guatemala, Netherlands, Peru, Sweden, Uruguay) recommended the creation of independent Arab and Jewish states, with Jerusalem to be placed under international administration. A minority (India, Iran, Yugoslavia) supported the creation of a single federal state containing both Jewish and Arab constituent states. Australia abstained. On November 29,
the UN General Assembly voted 33 to 13, with 10 abstentions, in favour
of the Partition Plan, while making some adjustments to the boundaries
between the two states proposed by it. The division was to take effect
on the date of British withdrawal. Both the United States and Soviet Union agreed on the resolution. In addition, pressure was exerted on some small countries by Zionist sympathizers in the United States.[43]

The partition plan was rejected out of hand by the leadership of the
Palestinian Arabs and by most of the Arab population. Most of the Jews
accepted the proposal, in particular the Jewish Agency,
which was the Jewish state-in-formation. Numerous records indicate the
joy of Palestine's Jewish inhabitants as they attended the U.N. session
voting for the division proposal. Up to this day, Israeli history books
mention 29 November, the date of this session, as the most important date leading to the creation of the Israeli state.

Meeting in Cairo in November and December of 1947, the Arab League then adopted a series of resolutions aimed at a military solution to the conflict. The United Kingdom
refused to implement the plan arguing it was not acceptable to both
sides. It also refused to share with the UN Palestine Commission the
administration of Palestine during the transitional period, and decided
to terminate the Mandate on May 15th, 1948.[43][43]

Several Jewish organizations also declined the proposal. Menachem Begin,
Irgun's leader, announced: "The partition of the homeland is illegal.
It will never be recognized. The signature by institutions and
individuals of the partition agreement is invalid. It will not bind the
Jewish people. Jerusalem was and will for ever be our capital. The Land
of Israel will be restored to the people of Israel. All of it. And for
ever". His views were publicly rejected by the majority of the nascent
Jewish state.

The British mandate over Palestine was due to expire on 15 May1948, but Jewish Leadership led by future Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion, declared independence on 14 May. The State of Israeldeclared itself as an independent nation, and was quickly recognized by the Soviet Union, the United States,
and many other countries. Over the next few days, approximately 1,000
Lebanese, 5,000 Syrian, 5,000 Iraqi, 10,000 Egyptian troops invaded the newly-established state.
Four thousand Transjordanian troops, commanded by 38 British officers
who had resigned their commissions in the British army only weeks
earlier (commanded by General Glubb), invaded the Corpus separatum
region encompassing Jerusalem and its environs, as well as areas
designated as part of the Arab state by the UN partition plan. They
were aided by corps of volunteers from Saudi Arabia, Libya and Yemen.

We appeal ... to the Arab inhabitants of the State of Israel to
preserve peace and participate in the upbuilding of the State on the
basis of full and equal citizenship and due representation in all its
provisional and permanent institutions.

In an official cablegram from the Secretary-General of the League of Arab States to the UN Secretary-General on 15 May1948,
the Arab states publicly proclaimed their aim of creating a "United
State of Palestine" in place of the Jewish and Arab, two-state, UN
Plan. They claimed the latter was invalid, as it was opposed by
Palestine's Arab majority, and maintained that the absence of legal
authority made it necessary to intervene to protect Arab lives and
property.[44]
On the date of British withdrawal the Jewish provisional government
declared the formation of the State of Israel, and the provisional
government said that it would grant full civil rights to all within its
borders, whether Arab, Jew, Bedouin or Druze.

British Mandate: Proposed 1947 partition borders and 1949 armistice lines; main differences are in light red and magenta.

Following the 1948 Arab-Israeli War,
the State of Israel retained nearly all the territory that would have
been assigned to it in the 1947 UN Partition Plan, as well as half of
the land intended to become the Arab state of Palestine and a portion
of the territory intended for international administration around
Jerusalem. The remaining half of the land that had been intended to
become Palestine along the West Bank of the Jordan River was annexed by Jordan, as was most of the Jerusalem enclave; the Gaza Strip along the Mediterranean coast, also included in the Arab state territory, was captured by Egypt.

In 1920 the majority of the approximately 750,000 people in this
multi-ethnic region were Arabic-speaking Muslims, including a Bedouin
population (estimated at 103,331 at the time of the 1922 census[45] and concentrated in the Beersheba area and the region south and east of it), as well as Jews (who comprised some 11% of the total) and smaller groups of Druze, Syrians, Sudanese, Circassians, Egyptians, Greeks, and Hejazi Arabs.

In 1922 the British undertook the first census of the mandate. The
population was 752,048, comprising 589,177 Muslims, 83,790 Jews, 71,464
Christians and 7,617 persons belonging to other groups. After a second
census in 1931, the population had grown to 1,036,339 in total,
comprising 761,922 Muslims, 175,138 Jews, 89,134 Christians and 10,145
people belonging to other groups. There were no further censuses but
statistics were maintained by counting births, deaths and migration.
Some components such as illegal immigration could only be estimated
approximately. The White Paper of 1939,
which placed immigration restrictions on Jews, stated that the Jewish
population "has risen to some 450,000" and was "approaching a third of
the entire population of the country". In 1945 a demographic study
showed that the population had grown to 1,764,520, comprising 1,061,270
Muslims, 553,600 Jews, 135,550 Christians and 14,100 people of other
groups.

As of 1931, the territory of the British Mandate of Palestine was 26,625,600 dunums, of which 8,252,900 dunums or 33% were cultivable.[47]Official statistics show that Jews privately and collectively owned 1,393,531 dunums of land in 1945.[48] Estimates of the total volume of land that Jews had acquired by May 15, 1948
are complicated by illegal and unregistered land transfers, as well as
by the lack of data on land concessions from the Palestine
administration after March 31, 1936.[49] According to Avneri, Jews held 1,850,000 dunums of land in 1947.[50] Stein gives the estimate of 2,000,000 dunums as of May 1948.[51]

The land owned privately and collectively by Arabs and Jews can be
classified as urban, rural built-on, cultivable (farmed), and
uncultivable. The following chart shows the ownership by Arabs and Jews
in each of the categories.

^ The others
included Occupied Enemy Territories North (Lebanon) under the command
of French Colonel De Piape and Occupied Enemy Territories East (Syria
and Transjordan) under the command of Faisal's chief of staff General
Ali Riza el-Riqqabi.

^Chaim Weizmann,
subsequently reported to his colleagues in London: "There are still
important details outstanding, such as the actual terms of the mandate
and the question of the boundaries in Palestine. There is the
delimitation of the boundary between French Syria and Palestine, which
will constitute the northern frontier and the eastern line of
demarcation, adjoining Arab Syria. The latter is not likely to be fixed
until the Emir Feisal attends the Peace Conference, probably in Paris."
See: 'Zionist Aspirations: Dr Weizmann on the Future of Palestine', The Times, Saturday, 8 May, 1920; p. 15.

^ Under the
Balfour Declaration the British government had undertaken to favour the
reconstitution of a Jewish national home in Palestine without prejudice
to the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in
Palestine or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any
other country.

^ Brown, Judith, and W.M. Roger Lewis, eds. The Oxford History of the British Empire, Vol IV. "The Twentieth Century," p. 336. See:[3]

^Official Records of the Second Session of the General Assembly,
Supplement No. 11, United Nations Special Committee on Palestine,
Report to the General Assembly, Volume 1. Lake Success, NY, 1947.
A/364, 3 September 1947, Chapter II.C.68., at [4]

^ "in April
1920 the Allies decided that so far as the Arabic-speaking world was
concerned they would implement the provisions of such a treaty [with
Turkey] as they envisaged. Such action was of course, highly
illegal...this irregular conduct was more public spirited than
otherwise. It was the only sensible thing to do..." Christopher Sykes, Crossroads to Israel

^ ab Quincy Wright, Mandates under the League of Nations, Univ. of Chicago Press, 1930.

^ See also:
Temperley, History of the Paris Peace Conference, Vol VI, p505–506;
League of Nations, The Mandates System (official publication of 1945);
Hill, Mandates, Dependencies and Trusteeship, p133ff.

^ ab
Franco-British Convention on Certain Points Connected with the Mandates
for Syria and the Lebanon, Palestine and Mesopotamia, signed Dec. 23,
1920. Text available in American Journal of International Law, Vol. 16, No. 3, 1922, 122–126.

^ Agreement
between His Majesty's Government and the French Government respecting
the Boundary Line between Syria and Palestine from the Mediterranean to
El Hámmé, Treaty Series No. 13 (1923), Cmd. 1910. Also Louis, 1969, p.
90.

^ "The Zionist
cause depends on rational northern and eastern boundaries for a
self-maintaining, economic development of the country. This means, on
the north, Palestine must include the Litani River and the watersheds
of the Hermon, and on the east it must include the plains of the Jaulon
and the Hauran. Narrower than this is a mutilation… I need not remind
you that neither in this country nor in Paris has there been any
opposition to the Zionist program, and to its realization the
boundaries I have named are indispensable". Abelson, Meir, Palestine: The Original Sin.

^ Secret World War II documents released by the UK in July, 2001, include documents on an Operation Atlas (See References: KV 2/400–402. A joint German/Arab team, lead by Kurt Wieland,
parachuted into Palestine in September 1944. This was one of the last
German efforts in the region to attack the Jewish community in
Palestine and undermine British rule by supplying local Arabs with
cash, arms and sabotage equipment. The team was picked up shortly after
landing.

9 Dependencies of St. Helena since 1922 (Ascension Island) and 1938 (Tristan da Cunha).10 Both claimed in 1908; territories formed in 1962 (British
Antarctic Territory) and 1985 (South Georgia and the South Sandwich
Islands).11 Occupied by Argentina during the Falklands War of April-June 1982.